Online Content for the Global Access Library METRO

Online Content for the “Global Access” Library METRO Workshop February 21, 2007 Kathryn Shaughnessy Instructional Services Librarian

From Distance Access to Global access Background: • • • Wireless infrastructure / e-resources Distance Learner “amenities” for all students St. John’s “Academic Computing Initiative” Distance Learning accreditation Missions: – Social Justice – Leveraging technology

From Distance Access to Global access Academic Growth in terms of Mission: • Title III Grant for “Core” Faculty Development Information Literacy Critical Thinking Incorporation of Technology • CTL fellows: enhancing pedagogy through technology • SJC: Global Development and Social Justice MLS • ASL: “See the World” Service semester abroad

From Distance Access to Global access Online Resources: NEEDS ASSESSMENT ARCHITECTURE CONTENT TECHNOLOGY TEST ASSESS Collaboration with IT, Faculty students, and core committees

From Distance Access to Global access Online Resources: NEEDS ARCHITECTURE CONTENT TECHNOLOGY TEST ASSESS Creation Distribution Impact

From Distance Access to Global access Creation of Online Content: NEEDS Student access to virtual library support – Student Location • Time zones • War/disaster zones – Student Access to technology • computers part of tuition for most (not all) • Infrastructure (power and communication) – Tech support – Bandwidth issues

From Distance Access to Global access Creation of Online Content: NEEDS Student access/barriers to local library support – – Physical Distance Psychological Cultural

From Distance Access to Global access Creation of Online Content: NEEDS Communication to enhance “community” – Students peers – Students Faculty – Students Librarian • Synchronous / Asynchronous • Formal / Informal

From Distance Access to Global access Creation of Online Content: NEEDS Academic Literacy Issues – – – Language Cultural Information Visual Technology

From Distance Access to Global access Creation of Online Content: NEEDS Social Justice Concerns – Costs of materials/software – provided but also looking for open source alternatives that can be used even after graduation – Cultural integrity -- solutions to local problems may require local resources – Learning from students – recognition of experience/expertise in their own area

From Distance Access to Global access Creation of Online Content: ARCHITECTURE: For site, tutorials, projects – What is most basic—what can be added later – build framework that is expandable CONTENT: For site, tutorials, sample projects – What do we have that already meets these needs? • repurpose/update – What do we need to create? • Long-term / short term / on-the-fly

From Distance Access to Global access Creation of Online Content: APPLY the TECHNOLOGY that FITS the NEEDS/CONTENT Keep it simple, consider: – Consider student bandwidth – Learning curve of users – future maintenance use technologies that allow for: – flexible access, at point-of-need (non-linear, can jump to sections) – peer and faculty assessment, grading and portfolio (for higher-order IL skills) – easy maintenance

From Distance Access to Global access Creation of Online Content: Tutorials Podcasts Blog Wiki Captivate Audacity Word. Press PBWiki, Wiki. PM Enhancing distribution / communication RSS & Ref. Works Skype Del. icio. us tagging & Ref. Works Portal Group / Courseware

Tutorials: Overview Tutorial Benefits: • Provides visual instruction and allows repetition of lesson for individual user (especially helpful for ESL and less technologically-savvy users) • Makes better use of librarian instruction time – either all online with follow-up ref questions – “just-in-time” learning to allow for higher level IL instruction • Rough Statistics: Can put “counters” into the html of the tutorial to get rough statistics of hits and IP locations Tutorial Pitfalls: • • Maintenance (general and interface changes) Keeping track lots of authors, lots of locations

Podcasts: Overview Podcast benefits: • repetition for difficult content/material & for listeners who have difficulty with English and allows multitasking (e. g. : commuting or exercising). • increased “frequency and depth” of learner interaction, especially in language & music -- inspired creation of podcasts – allows for “just-intime” learning with subsequent in-depth discussion • increased communication between students & faculty (voice connection), but also between library and IT departments; led to improved collaboration and planning, both within & among institutions. Duke Report, 2004 – 2005 and SJU feedback 2005 -2007 Podcast Pitfalls • • Creating/editing takes time Keeping them manageable size/length • Troubleshooting user error

Blog: Overview Blog benefits: • Push technology brings instruction to subscribed student in an easy way • • Good way to get timely instruction out fast, yet if written with longevity in mind, archived, categorized and searchable entries make old entries salient. Good way to get students to write/journal as part of e-portfolio • Comment feature is a good way to get informal feedback Blog Pitfalls • • • Creating/editing takes time Keeping them timely and interesting as well as instructional Spam on comments – to prevent must have users register

Wiki: Overview Wiki benefits: • Low technology learning curve, makes participation more likely • Good way to collaborate, for short term project, for long-term document, for a resource that builds over time (past the semester!) • Comment feature is a good way to get informal feedback • accessible for good for rubric grading and portfolio evaluation Wiki Pitfalls • • Creating/editing takes time must have users register to prevent “vandalism”

RSS: Overview RSS syndication/distribution: • Podcasts, blogs and wikis are “digi-born” and they can be accessed like webpages or syndicated/distributed through RSS feeds • You can use RSS can facilitate communicating your content quickly • you can also create RSS “libraries” (of internal or external content) for your constituents, but know that at this point, not everyone knows about RSS so: – you may need to “pre-feed” rss into courseware pages/portal – have RSS feed appear on your subject pages – or teach folks about RSS readers (Ref. Works/Personal Google)

Skype: Overview Skype benefits: • Low technology learning curve, makes participation outstanding! • Alternate formal communication channel, for when courseware is malfunctioning but also acts as an informal communication channel: IM service but also allow voice-in-real time for free • History feature saves “chats” and serves as a good way to capture informal and formal feedback and a way to track requests over time; allows sending tutorial links at point of need, later accessible for rubric grading • Allows attachments for documents and pictures – helps in troubleshooting Skype Pitfalls • Unsolicited “callers” on Skype. Me mode – to prevent this, users register and must be accepted as a contact

Delicious/Ref. Works: Overview Delicious & Ref. Works benefits: • Allows web access to favorite research/resources from anywhere, Allows “sharing” of resources with collaborators anywhere – also allows a librarian to generate a constantly updating pathfinder on a topic. • increased communication between students & faculty and between scholars both within & among institutions. • Natural segue for talking about Citing Sources & Avoiding Plagiarism Delicious & Ref. Works pitfalls • • • Delicious is mainly for websites, Ref. Works for databases and catalogues. They don’t “communicate” well. Ref. Works is proprietary, have to pay after graduation Both are potentially unwieldy if organizing tools not used

Testing: Overview Testing Mantra: Library 2. 0 is always in Beta All of these content-creation and content-delivery technologies are “in Beta, ” especially given that we are always getting feedback and always tweaking/expanding/instructing Title III and CTL faculty, and students/faculty in the core courses and the Global Masters’ programs (as well as our very energetic early-adopter faculty and students in DLIS) are our Beta-testers

Assessment: Overview ASSESSMENT Tied to Objectives – with the understanding that not all assessment is able to be captured in numbers/statistics; To be meaningful, must collaborate with faculty, and ultimately have the faculty member integrate lessons and IL in assignments; To be manageable – assign several people • Barbara Walvoord – keep a positive attitude, start small – keep the “stakeholders” informed – library newsletter, annual report, or “individualized” reports if necessary for funding • Barbara Fister – keep a “big picture” outlook, start small – although we need accreditation statistics, don’t let that put a stranglehold on library instruction assessment

Assessment: Overview ASSESSMENT Feedback: From students From faculty (several) From focus group From informal chats Pre-post Tests for IL tutorials (IL) Comments features (IL) Surveys in-class: high/low survey (Instructors) Lib. Qual: (Ann) Statistics popular page hits, tutorial counters (e-services) OPAC data captures – (IL & e-services) Rubrics wiki/blog projects & portfolios (Provost)

More information To peek at some of the technologies talked about in this presentation, visit this del. icio. us account page: http: //del. icio. us/kgshaughnessy/Metro. Global Contact information: Kathryn Shaughnessy St. John’s University Libraries shaughnk@stjohns. edu